Seven weeks into my pregnancy (I am now 31 weeks) I woke up with the worst pain of my life. Worse than labour. Worse than the time I was hit by a car. Worse than the time I was run over by a motor bike. Worse than the time I was run into by a cop who was chasing someone down the street (by foot)(it still hurt - he was giant) and I ended up with a concussion and fractured elbow. Worse then the time I fractured my knee cap. Or the other time I fractured my knee cap. So on this day of the terrible pain, I was convinced that I was having an ectopic pregnancy or that there was an alien in my body ready to burst out at any moment*. So I called my doctor’s office (not really knowing who to call for alien extraction)(do priests do this?)(for Jews?)
I knew that my doctor was on holiday in Israel but that there were several people in his practice covering for him. The doctor I spoke to told me to go to emergency (owing to the fact that I was throwing up from the pain while we were talking) but I convinced him to let me come to the office instead (owing to my hatred of emergency rooms and hospitals in general).
After being assessed at his office I was sent to emergency with a promise that he would come see me that afternoon and that the hospital would give me morphine (which is safe for pregnancy. Crazy, right? Why don’t they tell the crack addicts about THAT?), which at that point was all I really wanted anyway.
I knew that my doctor was on holiday in Israel but that there were several people in his practice covering for him. The doctor I spoke to told me to go to emergency (owing to the fact that I was throwing up from the pain while we were talking) but I convinced him to let me come to the office instead (owing to my hatred of emergency rooms and hospitals in general).
After being assessed at his office I was sent to emergency with a promise that he would come see me that afternoon and that the hospital would give me morphine (which is safe for pregnancy. Crazy, right? Why don’t they tell the crack addicts about THAT?), which at that point was all I really wanted anyway.
Now before we get any further into the story, I would like to point out that I have a crazy-high pain threshold. I worked out on a fractured knee cap thinking that it was a bruise. I missed my chance for an epidural because the nurses all thought that I was still in early labour while I was in transition**and by the time they got around to checking to see if my labour was progressing they could actually SEE MY SON'S HEAD (for some reason they will not give you an epidural at this point, even if you beg and promise to stay very, very still)(even if you refuse to push the baby out).
So I was admitted into the hospital, into a ward room - not because our insurance wouldn’t cover a private room but because it’s Canada*** and that’s all they had. By this point they had also determined that the pregnancy was not ectopic (phewf) but that I had two 5 centimetre (yep. Centimetre) cysts on my right ovary thus making a part of my body that should be the size of an olive (or walnut, if you prefer) the size of a grapefruit. But oddly, the doctors were not sure if that was the (only) source of the pain as they also suspected that my ovary had twisted on itself but had no way of knowing for sure. Had I not been pregnant, they would have done surgery right away (as a twisted ovary is a big deal), but because I was, we decided to wait it out (which would have been fine but for the fact that “waiting it out” includes not being allowed to eat or drink anything in case emergency surgery becomes necessary). Needless to say, after about 48 hours of this, I was telling my husband that if he really loved me he would get me a glass of apple juice (I was on a saline IV, but I was SO, SO thirsty) and after 72 hours I was telling him that if he didn’t bring me a bagel with peanut butter I was going to have to leave him after I got out of the hospital. And I mostly meant it.
Because my doctor was out of town, I was seen by colleagues who were covering for him - a different doctor every two days or so. Interestingly, most of them could not agree as to my treatment, or even about what was wrong with me. It was super-reassuring. The first two days I was in hospital, I had Dr A - a very caring doctor who was very pro-surgery but who said things like “I really think you need surgery, but I’m just going with my gut and, to be honest, I HAVE done surgery on people unnecessarily in similar situations, so it’s really up to you” What? Seriously?
So I asked the OB on call what she thought (no surgery). I asked the resident on call what he thought (no surgery). I asked my busy-body senior citizen roommate who knew my case better than any doctors due to her brilliant eavesdropping skills and she too voted for no surgery. So I decided to wait it out, given that unnecessary surgery is at least 93 percent more annoying than necessary surgery and also because I was pregnant and I didn’t want to put the baby at risk.
On Monday (day 3) I met Dr. B who said that I did not need surgery which made me feel pretty good --until Dr A stopped by to tell me that he had been thinking about my case all night and that he was now almost **** completely convinced that I needed surgery. Needless to say, I did not know what to do, but I did know that I was so hungry the hospital food smelled good (I hadn’t been allowed anything to eat or drink since Friday evening) and that if I didn’t have surgery I could have a drink. And dinner. So I chose apple juice and a peanut butter bagel over surgery. Though as soon as I ate the bagel I said to Jacob “I think I made a mistake. I think I need surgery”.
To recap, the reason I had not yet had surgery was because no-one was sure whether of nor my ovary was torsed (the doctor term for twisted) given that I was apparently not acting like I was in as much pain as someone with a torsed ovary should be (please refer to high pain threshold, Supra). However, by Tuesday, my left side was even more sore and ludicrously swollen owing to the fact that my giant right ovary had migrated to my left side. So obviously Dr. B decided that the pain and increased swelling were related to constipation (as there was a large bump when one touched my left side)(though I don’t think that I am ruining the story by revealing that this bump actually turned out to be my ovary). I tried to explain a few simple things to him - firstly, that I might not actually be constipated given that I hadn’t been allowed to eat in days (makes sense, right?) and also that the pain was so much worse than that. His response? “Constipation can be very painful.” Well guess what? So can a giant twisted ovary that has migrated to the wrong side of your body.
By Wednesday evening I decided that I’d had enough of my three roommates (one teenager and two seniors) and the very helpful protocol of laxatives they had me on, and I proceeded to sign myself out against (the mostly incompetent) doctors’ orders. For the record, I am not that rebellious - I was merely exhausted owing to the teenage roommate’s late night visitors, and my senior citizen roommate’s calling for Jesus all night long (incidentally, as far as I know, he never showed up). Also, I missed my kid so much I physically ached. So I went home.
By Thursday night I was in such excruciating pain that I called the doctor on call (a medical fellow whom I had been dealing with since I’d been admitted) at midnight to tell her that the pain was so bad I couldn’t find a comfortable position to sit or lie or stop throwing up. We’ll call her Dr HI (for humongous idiot)(because she is one). Dr HI told me to take a Gravol. So I did (which makes me a pretty big idiot too, given that I already knew that I couldn’t keep anything down.) I then waited a couple of painful, tearful hours and called again-- very apologetically explaining that I was sorry to be calling again but that I could not take the pain. She told me to meet her at the clinic at 8 a.m. as there was no point going to the hospital that night (for her maybe). Too exhausted to argue, I agreed and waited for 7 a.m. to come.
The next morning, Jacob, Benji and I all piled into the car at 7:30 and headed to the clinic. Because Dr HI was late, I saw Dr A again who told me to go back to the hospital ASAP and asked why I hadn’t gone when the pain started the night before. Call me petty, but I totally tattled on Dr HI at that point. It felt pretty good.
Back at the hospital (by myself- I didn’t want Benj to come in so Jacob was taking him back home where my mother was going to meet them) the admissions nurse couldn’t find my information despite the fact that Dr A had assured me that Dr. HI was going to call to arrange for my re-admission. They eventually found my information, but let’s just say that her name is Dr HI for a reason. Once admitted, I had a nice little cubicle in emergency, a morphine IV and a fifteen hour wait (owing to the fact that Dr HI had ordered the wrong type of ultrasound --they only looked at my ovaries as opposed to my bowels and abdomen-- and I had to wait all day to get the one that internal medicine actually needed to assess my case). Luckily, they provided lots of entertainment while I was waiting in the form of enemas ***** and blood tests.
At 1 a.m. I was told that I could no longer stay in my comfortable emergency cubicle (despite the fact that there were several empty ones) because Dr. HI had signed me onto my old ward on the fourth floor and they had no choice but to move me. The problem was that there were no beds left on the fourth floor, which is why I had asked to remain an outpatient until a bed became available. Apparently Dr HI didn’t remember or care about this, so I “slept” in the hall that night while my comfortable (relatively speaking) cubicle in emergency remained vacant .
This part of the story is starting to bore me, so I will try to sum up - basically I was handed off again to another incompetent doctor who prescribed more enemas and walking around the ward (“to get things moving”)(obviously). My giant right ovary was still hanging out on the left side of my body and the pain was getting worse. Oh- and I finally got a room. And then a different room. And more roommates, one more annoying than the next (who likes sharing a room with sick people?). And I was eight-and-a-half weeks pregnant.
On Monday I was informed that the ultrasound I had been waiting for all weekend had been postponed until Tuesday or Wednesday and I’d had it. I called my doctor (who had returned from his vacation the night before) and told him what was going on (he'd been briefed about my case but did not know that my ultrasound had been pushed back, yet again). So my doctor, who is not at all incompetent (I am not being sarcastic - I know it's hard to tell sometimes) took my case back. By that evening I’d had an MRI and had met with the surgeon who was going to perform my emergency surgery as my situation had become -get this- life threatening.
The lead-up to surgery was scary. I was wheeled down to the OR, blind (you are not allowed to wear glasses or contacts) and alone (you are also not allowed to bring husbands and friends with you past a certain point) and was left outside the operating room while the doctors prepped. So I had time to worry - to worry for my babies - the one that I had been carrying for almost nine weeks whom I had not yet met, but really, truly, already loved and the one who was at home likely wondering why the crap I hadn’t been around lately. I worried for myself - as I feel like my own life has become so precious, so valuable since becoming a mother. The idea of not seeing my sweet boy grow up, not being there to kiss him and nuzzle him and smell his sweet smell brings tears to me eyes even as I write this. I didn’t - don’t ever- want to leave my son without a mother and Jacob all alone (at least for the six to eight week mourning period before he can conceivably start dating) to raise our beautiful boy. So I lay there in the stretcher and hoped that no-one could see that I was crying (because I’m pretty sure that rule about people not being able to see you if you can’t see them is not a real one).
So my fabulous doctor removed my right ovary and fallopian tube (which had been dead for days - had they untwisted it when the whole thing first happened, it would have been okay) and spent hours -literally- removing all of the necrotic tissue that had wrapped around my bowel causing an obstruction. I was fine and -miracle of miracles- so was the little baby that I was (am still!) carrying.
Post-surgery, the hospital sucked as much as ever (I finally got a private room having been on the wait list for nearly two weeks only to have it taken away again that day)(after I moved all of my stuff) as did the staff (my nurse forgot that she was supposed to catheterize me post-surgery leaving me with OVER A LITRE of liquid in my bladder until a very nice doctor figured out what was going on) and my recovery was slow (I wasn’t allowed to eat any solid food for another two weeks and I was STARVING) but being wheeled out of surgery was the beginning of a really happy ending to a story that could have ended much differently. So, in sum, I have one working ovary******, one amazing toddler, one healthy pregnancy and a husband who reminded me how incredible he really is. How’s that for a happy ending?
*okay, so this is supposed to be an Aliens reference, but I never saw the movie and can’t be bothered to Google it. Just humour me, okay?
**the part of labour that most people are generally drugged for and if they’re not it’s the point that they start begging for drugs. I too begged for drugs, but apparently I wasn’t screaming loud enough so they assumed that I was still in early labour.
***I actually love and believe in socialized medicine, I am just still a little bitter about the room situation. A few sleepless nights in a room with a slutty teenage roommate and a demented senior roommate who won’t stop crying out for Jesus will do that to a girl.
****Almost? Seriously?
*****You’d think that the fact that said enemas did not um- deliver any results- would have been their first good clue that I had a bowel obstruction, but it wasn’t. It was just a reason to keep giving me enemas. It was awesome and not at all uncomfortable or humiliating.
******Dr A had prescribed daily progesterone shots at the beginning of my hospital stay on the chance that my right ovary was no longer functioning. Had he not done so, I would have lost the pregnancy.
